Bøger af Madhuri Mandava

In My Romance with the Himalayas, Madhuri Mandava recounts: "While the initial years were to learn mountaineering, they later culminated in spiritual quests to attain enlightenment. I have faced numerous avalanches, hail storms, landslides, gotten lost on glaciers (almost died), leapt across gorges, walked on tree trunks in lieu of bridges, been bitten by giant mosquitoes, felt leeches suck my blood, struggled with little food -- sometimes just a piece of jaggery (brown sugar) that I sucked on for hours -- faced cold and bitter winds, was close to frostbite, and so much more -- but my love for the rivers and mountains was so deep. I was a fearless wanderer."My Romance with the Himalayas captures the first phase of her journey towards spiritual truth, wherein her love of the Himalayas and struggles against the wondrous, at times, terrifying, forces of nature, led her to experience awe, spiritual elevation, and the beginnings of mystical surrender to the greater forces of the universe.Again, Mandava says it best: "While in the pristine Himalayas, feeling blissful, serene and intoxicated with beauty, I can experience every breath in silence with each step I take. In the never-ending scenery with ferocious flowing rivers like the Ganges, Mandakini, and Alaknanda, I lose myself in nature as it engraves and etches itself in my memory forever so that I recall every moment. I feel submerged in its divinity as I realize how small I am when I look at snow-capped mountains. I don't feel the need for company, much less listening to other people chit chat. It's not the place for crowds and words, unless they are spoken by nature."We follow the 18 year-old Madhuri to the source of the Ganges, across treacherous Gangotri Glacier on the border of China, through desolate spaces where her team loses its bearings and is forced to turn back. We see her, older and more skilled, befriending locals in the lower Himalayas, trekking to Mount Kailash -- which is holy to Bon, Buddhist, Hindu and Jain religions - where she endures difficult, primitive conditions. Along the way, through many treks, she is inspired by holy men and women, performs penance, meditates, and deepens her sense of the spiritual in the presence of the Himalayas.Throughout, all is documented with magnificent photos - and a rich explication of the Hindu lore that suffuses the Himalayas with meaning. As in all romances, she endures moments of doubt and struggle, but most of all, beauty shines through.

A Kriya Yogi's Kundalini Awakening in the Himalayas takes us through the spiritual quest of a dynamic and accomplished Indian woman, Madhuri Mandava, who first set off, in 1987, for the Himalayas as an 18 year-old college student in search of adventure, and soon found herself inspired by the sight of sadhu yogis chanting around a fire. A day later as her team approached Gangotri Glacier and towering Mt. Shivling, at 6,543 meters (21,456 ft.), she grew so transfixed that she lost all sense of "me" or "I" and became one with her surroundings, not knowing that the wrath of nature would soon assert itself with frigid winds and piercing snow as she got lost on the glacier, as her team was forced to retreat blindly to base camp, in a state of uncertain desperation. Her initial aspiration to learn mountaineering had turned into a spiritual quest to attain enlightenment. By 1996, she had moved to America, earned a Master's in computer science, and was professionally established in Silicon Valley in California. It was then that a severe case of influenza brought extreme fatigue and despair that intensified her longing to awaken, which left her with an intense desire to run off to the Himalayas and sit on a rock until she achieved Enlightenment. Her initial aspiration to learn mountaineering had turned into a spiritual quest to attain enlightenment. By 1996, she had moved to America, earned a Master's in computer science, and was professionally established in Silicon Valley in California. It was then that a severe case of influenza brought extreme fatigue and despair that intensified her longing to awaken, which left her with an intense desire to run off to the Himalayas and sit on a rock until she achieved Enlightenment.

A "Kriya Yogi's Kundalini Awakening in the Himalayas" offers readers a deep trek not only to the Himalayas but to an extraordinary woman's spiritual awakening. Her initial aspiration to learn mountaineering had turned into a spiritual quest to attain enlightenment. She began reading books on quantum physics and metaphysics, and found no answers, before eventually stumbling upon Autobiography of a Yogi, by Paramahansa Yogananda (1893-1952), where she learned that the path of Kriya Yoga had been given to humanity to realize our immortality through self-realization and the evolution of consciousness and got initiated into this science by Baba Paramahamsa Hariharananda Giri, a direct disciple of Sri Yukteshwar and a peer to Yogananda. She experienced her final Awakening. where she became ONE with the Universe at the cave of Mahavatar Babaji that Yogananda cites in his book. She took the treacherous Siddhartha Road to Awakening that spanned over 25 years of her various spiritual practices